“Not that long,” Hanna said, shifting her weight as she scaled the timeline of her deceit down. “Only, like, a few weeks.”
“A few weeks? Hanna.” Her mom shook her head. “I don’t understand you. I don’t understand what you think you’re doing. Every time you lie to me and your dad, you set us all back. Because now I wonder—what else have you been lying about? Can you see that, Hanna? I don’t want to have to think like that, but when you violate the trust that we have only just built back up, I have to.”
“I’m not lying about anything else,” Hanna said. “And I wasn’t even lying about this, more . . . not telling the whole truth. Because I knew you would think it was a bad idea anyway.”
“Of course I think it’s a bad idea!” Theresa said. “I know you love to play music, Hanna, but am I the only one who remembers what happened to you when you were involved in all that? You are doing so, so much better now, and the last thing I want is for you to slide back into that place you were in before. But this seems like a good way for that to happen, doesn’t it?”
Hanna folded her arms. “I’m not drinking,” she said bluntly. “I’m not going to drink. I just want to make music. I want to be happy.”
“And maybe I could believe that if you hadn’t gone behind our backs to do all this,” her mom said, waving in the direction of the garage. “Having them over here only when we’re not around, bringing your sister into this—”
“She didn’t make me do anything,” Molly interrupted. “And Mom, you should hear them, they’re so good!”
“That is not the point,” Theresa said. “Molly, go upstairs.”
“But—”
“Upstairs!”
She waited until Molly was gone before turning back to Hanna. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is a good idea. I think it needs to be done, now.”
The way her mom said I’m sorry made it clear she was anything but. “Done?”
“Finished,” her mom said, slicing her hands through the air. “No more.”
“No!” Hanna clasped her hands together, pleading. “Mom, we get to play to the judges tomorrow, and then that’s it. We might actually win. And it’s so different now, I’m so different now, you know that.”
But her mom shook her head. “I don’t know, Hanna,” she said. “When you lie to me, you make me think that you’re not so different.”
It landed like a barb in Hanna’s heart, but she tried again. “I should have told you, I’m sorry, I—I didn’t want you to think all of this stuff, but please, Mom, it’s not what you think and it’s—”
Her mom held her hand up, stopping Hanna. “This is what I mean,” she said. “Trust. Maybe if you’d come to me first, we could have discussed this and worked something out. But you lied, and now you want me to believe that it’s not a big deal. That’s not the way it works, Hanna. And I’m saying no. I don’t want you doing this.”
Hanna shook her head, desperate. “You can’t stop me,” she said. “I’m eighteen.”
Her mom raised her eyebrows and let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, is that where you want to go with this? Okay, then. Yes, Hanna, you are eighteen. An adult. But you live in my house, so you play by my rules. If you want to do your own thing, then you need to do it outside my house. That’s the way it is.”
Hanna’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kicking me out?”
“No,” Theresa said. “I am telling you the rules. In my house, you will not lie to us, and you will do as I say, and I say you can’t do this.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Hanna said, clenching her fists tight and giving in to sudden anger. “You can’t do that.”
“I can and I will.” Her mom crossed the kitchen and put a hand on Hanna’s cheek, and Hanna could see deep into her eyes then. Anger and fear, both in there. This rush of guilt washed over Hanna.
She should have told the truth from the beginning. It wasn’t even that big a deal. And now it was this, it had become this, because her mom couldn’t let her have this one thing. “I will not lose you again, Hanna. I saw you disappear right in front of my eyes, and I had to watch them stick a tube down your throat to get you back from the poison you put in yourself, twice, and I had to put my seventeen-year-old daughter in rehab. I’m sorry if you think I’m overreacting, but you are my daughter and I will do whatever I have to to keep you with me.”
“Mom,” Hanna said, and unexpected tears spilled over, the weight of them slipping down her cheeks. “I just got this back. Dia and Jules, they’re not—I was so lonely and now I’m not,” she said, her voice cracking. “It’s only tomorrow and then we’ll be done, no more practices, I promise.” A rash promise to make, but right now she wanted to get her mom to stop and consider. Hanna did not want to leave, she didn’t want this to be the thing that pulled them apart, but god, she was so exhausted.
But her mom shook her head again. “I’m sorry, Hanna,” she said. “This is the way it’s going to be. This is for your safety.”
Hanna stepped back, out of her mom’s grasp, and the last thread of self-preservation snapped. “I don’t get you,” she said. “What else do you want me to do? I got sober and I let you search my room whenever you wanted and I earned your trust back, but because of this one little thing, it’s all gone? That’s bullshit.”
“Excuse me?” Theresa said. “You better watch yourself, Hanna.”
“Why bother? You watch me all the time,” Hanna said. “I’m sick of it. When are you going to let me live my life again? Am I supposed to stay here and do whatever you say whenever you say it so that one day you’ll think I’m good again?” She pulled in a ragged breath. “I will never be good again, will I? I’m the bad daughter, the one who drank and drained you and hurt your precious baby, the one good child you have. You want me to go? Maybe I should. Go and leave you all here so you can live a nice tidy little life without my mess to ruin it for you. And you can tell all your friends that you tried your hardest but I was just too out of control. That would be nice, right?”
“You think I want you to leave?”
“I don’t know, Mom,” Hanna said. “You don’t really seem to want me here.”
“When your father comes home—”
“He’ll say exactly what you say,” Hanna said. “That’s how it works.”
“I have had enough of your attitude right now.”
Hanna whipped around, heading back outside. “Or maybe you’ve had enough of me.”
“Where are you going?” her mom snapped to her back. “Hanna, get back here. Hanna!”
Hanna
Breathe.
Breathe.
Hanna went back into the garage to find Dia and Jules all packed up, and Jules looked at her. “What did she say? Are you okay?”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Hanna said, clenching her fists. “You know, she thinks I’m a liar and a drunk, but what else is new?” Her nails dug into the palms of her hands and she shook her head, trying to shake out the whisper of whiskeywhiskeywhiskey. “You should really go.”
“Yeah, we’re going,” Dia said. “Wait—she said that to you?”
“It’s literally nothing new,” Hanna said. “It is what it is, okay? Can you—” She stopped and tried to slow her breathing. “I need you to go, now.”
“We’re going,” Dia said again. “All right?”
Jules and Dia exchanged a look that Hanna was pretty sure she wasn’t meant to see. “So, tomorrow—”
“I don’t know why she’s so pissed,” Hanna said, whirling her hands through the air. “I was going to tell her. I was just waiting.”
“Right,” Dia said. “But—”
Hanna rounded on her. “But what? But I didn’t? But I’m a liar anyway, so who would even believe what I did or didn’t plan to do?”
“Did I say that?” Dia picked up her guitar case. “There’s history, that’s all.”
“Oh, of course you would take her side,” Hanna said. She looked up at the ceiling and let out half a breath of unamused la
ughter. “You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you? You think you’re so clever with your little comments and rolling your eyes when you think I can’t see, like, Hanna, you messed it up again! I get it, Dia, okay? I’m a fuck-up and I always will be to you, but god, you are not perfect either.”
Dia stepped back. “Again, did I say that? No.” She shook her head. “We’re leaving now. You can call me later, when you’ve calmed down.”
“I’m calm,” Hanna said, her teeth gritted. “Don’t I look calm to you?”
“You look like you need space,” Jules said. “Or maybe you should give your mom the space.”
“It doesn’t matter what I do or where I go,” Hanna said, pacing now. “There’s always something with her. I’m always screwing up in a thousand different ways. And then she tries to tell me she’s only worried, she’s concerned, always has to bring it back to the fucking drinking. That has nothing to do with this!”
Dia looked at her. “You’re right,” she said. “Maybe that has nothing to do with this. Because you’re sober right now, and yet here you are, screaming at us and talking about your mom when you know what, yeah, she probably is worried about you and you’re lucky, you know? Not everybody has a mom like that.”
“She should take a tip from you,” Hanna said, and she let out a bitter laugh, looking at her hands. “Give up on me. Cut her losses. Worked out okay for you, didn’t it?”
“Give up on you?” Dia said, her eyes flashing. “Wow, Hanna. So why the fuck am I here? Did I imagine all this, the last month?” She looked at Jules again and back at Hanna, her eyebrows pulling together. “You think that I wanted to cut myself off from you? No. But there’s only so long you can let yourself be hurt by someone who doesn’t want your help, and you didn’t want it, not at all. So what were we supposed to do? Stand by and watch you kill yourself?”
“You didn’t have to abandon me!”
“Well, I’m sorry it felt like that, but I did what I thought I had to do,” Dia said. “And I don’t want to do it again, I don’t want to give up on you and on this, and live and die in this town. I want more than that, and so do you, and you’ve been telling me all this time how different you are now, so prove it to me.”
“I can’t! You won’t ever believe me,” Hanna said. “You and your fu—”
“Hey!” Jules said. “Stop. Both of you, stop! We didn’t spend the last month busting our asses so you can force us into imploding now.”
“It’s always my fault, isn’t it?” Hanna snapped, and Jules glared at her.
“I didn’t say it was anyone’s fault,” she said. “I just want this to stop before it goes too far and we can’t come back from it.”
The air shimmered with the heat of her outburst and Hanna felt the shake in her hands.
But she already wanted to peel the words back from the ether and swallow them whole. Choke on them.
Dia exhaled loudly. “Tomorrow is important. We have worked too hard to mess it up. So we’re leaving, and you do whatever you need to do to remember why we’re doing this, and then you call me later. Okay?”
Hanna looked past her. She knew Dia was right. Why couldn’t she shut up? Always running her fucking mouth, ruining all the work she’d done to make people believe she’d changed, to make herself believe she was different now.
Well done, Hanna: you’re truly living down to everybody’s low expectations.
Congratulations.
“Come on,” Dia said to Jules, and Hanna wanted to say something, but all the fight had vanished and she only wanted to give herself to the floor beneath her.
Jules looked back at her before they disappeared. “Think about tomorrow,” she said. “That’s what we wanted before. We might get it now. Think about that, okay?”
When Hanna gave one sharp nod, she tasted the salt of her tears. Fuck.
“Okay,” Jules said. “Call me if you want.”
Hanna watched them leave and sank to a crouch, pressing her hands to her eyes as she rocked on her heels. The taste of her words was metallic, and she wasn’t sure if she was going to throw up or not.
“Get inside.” Her mom’s voice was like nothing she’d ever heard before, and now Hanna was pretty sure she was going to be sick. “Now, Hanna.”
She stood slowly and waited there, surveying the mess of their practice, the mess she usually tidied and hid so nobody would be able to tell. There it was, a month’s worth of back and forth and testing new boundaries and releasing so much history into the stale garage air.
Was it all over, now?
“Hanna.”
She turned and looked her mom dead in the eye. “You don’t have to yell,” she said, knowing she was only making things worse. But she kind of liked it. “I’m right here.”
Hanna skipped dinner. She sat at the top of the stairs instead and listened to her parents arguing about her.
She’s lying to us again, her mom kept saying. How do we know she’s not lying about other things too?
“You could ask,” Hanna said under her breath. Unlikely.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, her dad said. She’s come a long way.
That was nice, her dad sticking up for her.
And it only takes one slip to bring her crashing down, her mom said. I’m not taking any chances.
Hanna got up and retreated to her room. Now she was calmer, she could understand what her mom had been saying—the trust thing. She had lied. She had broken their trust. But if she’d asked, told her parents that she wanted to play in a band again, she knew what they would have said. She knew what her mom would have done.
She lay on the floor beneath the window, evening light playing over her body.
But making music again felt like surfacing after a thousand hours underwater. They didn’t get it and they didn’t ever let her explain it.
Her phone buzzed for maybe the fifth time in twenty minutes. Hanna looked at it, then put it facedown on the floor. Dia and Jules were freaking out, she was sure.
She was freaking out, underneath it all. Because tomorrow was important. If she didn’t go, then she’d be letting the others down, and tanking their shot at fifteen grand and the Glory Alabama show.
If she went, and her mom found out—and she’d find out; wasn’t today evidence enough for that?—then she’d lose her family. Even more than she already had.
Her phone buzzed again: voice mail, from Dia. She listened to it: “Hey, it’s me. I’m—sorry for being shitty earlier. I just want to make sure you’re okay. Call me or text me or something.”
Hanna tossed her phone aside. What was her punishment going to be? No car privileges. Curfew. Walk a straight line, touch your nose, blow into this. Maybe.
Her palms itched. In the trunk of her dad’s car was a bottle of Jameson that she knew he thought she didn’t know about. She could go out there and take it, drink the whole thing and forget about all this until some point further in the future, leave it for Future Hanna to deal with.
More of her than she liked said, Yes, do it. The idea of oblivion was so enticing.
Four hundred and—what was it?
She stayed in her room, weighing the idea and mindlessly watching makeup tutorials and chain-smoking out of the window until the rest of the house was asleep and quiet. Then she made her decision.
Nothing was going to change unless she made it. And she’d been doing everything her parents’ way for so long now, but it didn’t make a difference.
Time to try something new.
She looked around her bedroom, surveying all her stuff in the moonlight. Clothes on the floor and books stacked against the wall and her small desk with her laptop on it. The lamp on her nightstand, pictures of her and Molly at various ages tacked up on her closet doors.
She took a deep breath and then started with the pictures. Took them down one by one and laid them on her bed. Then she started on the insides of her closet, throwing all her shorts and underwear and shirts on top of the pictures. The cou
ple crumpled dresses on the bottom, shiny, tight things from her darkest days, she left.
Hanna was half under her bed when she heard the creak of her bedroom door, and then Molly’s voice. “She didn’t mean it,” her sister whispered, and Hanna could hear the nerves in her voice. “You don’t have to do this.”
Hanna came out with the biggest duffel she owned and dust on her hands, looking over at Molly in the darkened doorway. “Were you listening earlier?”
“Behind the kitchen door.”
Of course; she’d learned that habit from Hanna. “She meant it, Molls.” Hanna forced a smile. “Don’t worry about it, though. I’ll be fine.”
“Where are you going to go?” Molly asked, playing with the drawstring on her pajama shorts. “Don’t do this.”
Hanna ignored her question and started shoving her clothes into the bag. “I’ll be fine,” she said again. “Trust me.”
“I do,” Molly said quietly. “Hanna. I do trust you, you know?”
Hanna paused her packing and turned around. She was never sure with Molly, when she said things like this: did she mean it, or did she just want to make her big sister happy? After what Hanna had put her through?
Hanna liked to believe it was a little of both, mostly.
So she said, “I know, Molls.” She crossed the room and pulled her sister in close, planted a kiss on the top of her head. “I know.”
Elliot
OCTOBER
Elliot shifts into third and tries to ignore the rattling sound coming from somewhere in the car. It’s not his, it belongs to his cousin Ana, and it’s kind of crappy, but he wanted to take Dia out without taking the bus. So now he owes Ana thirty bucks of gas money and an unspecified favor, but it’s worth it. It was even worth Dia’s dad grilling him at their front door: “You drive safe? No texting, right?” he’d said. “You don’t drink and drive, drive while you’re high?”
“No, sir,” Elliot had said. “Wouldn’t even think about it.”
Now Dia rolls down the window and sticks her hand out. “Sorry about my dad,” she says. “He does that to everyone I get in a car with. He’s an EMT, so, you know, he sees it all the time.”
This Is What It Feels Like Page 19